New Beginnings
by Princess Pinky
Summary: Grace Bowman is having the worst day possible. The worst week. And maybe even the worst year. But can an old friend make it any better?


**A/N:** Oh! Don't I feel vindicated that I was totally RIGHT about the Grason kiss over summer! I'm so on the Grason train. I really, really, _really_ don't like Jace. So in celebration of my rightness – and yes, I am doing my "Who got it right?!" song and dance – I've written another Grace/Jason fic.

**_New Beginnings_**

The whole week had been terrible. Murphy's Law at its best. And if the week was any indication, she was going to be in for a _very_ strenuous year. Of course with her recent string of luck, it only made sense that as she arrived at her 2000 carnation pink Toyota Camry, that she would also see her car keys on the other side of the glass, smirking at her from their position on her driver's seat.

Grace Bowman curled her fists and slammed them against her frosted window in frustration. _"Curses!"_ she seethed, reaching into her pocket for her cell phone. Unsurprisingly, the battery was flashing at her. "Just please let me make this one call to Triple A," she begged before punching in the number. Predictably, the phone rang exactly one and a half times, and then a low pitched noise echoed in her ear as the cellular died. _"Freaking A!"_

The blonde through her arms into the frosty air and turned back, heading for Hampton-Hope Hospital, which had only been built at the beginning of last year. As she scurried across the blacktop, the smooth bottom of her pink flat smeared along a thick puddle of black ice and before she knew it, she was wallowing in the parking lot on her back.

"Oh my God! Are you okay?"

The sound of the voice was muffled as blood pounded through her ears. She was staring at the stars in the near midnight sky while seeing stars she was _seeing stars_. "Ooogh," she grunted, her silver eyes straining to focus on the distant voice. Then the blurry batch of stars promptly disappeared, replaced by a dark face looming above her. She squinted, but the features of the face just ran together like a wet painting.

"Oh my gosh," the voice said, slightly clearer than before. "Grace, is that you?"

Grace felt a hand touch hers. It was warm and the tender manner in which the hand held onto her seemed like déjà vu. "Wh-" she closed her eyes, blocking out the swirling face. "Y-yeah. Grace," she sputtered. Suddenly another warm hand was on her shoulder.

"Are you alright? Can you sit up?"

"I…I don't know." Without opening her eyes, she grasped the hand that was holding hers and summoned her will to lean forward. She felt her upper body incline as the strong hand pulled her back. Her head swam, even in the darkness behind her eyelids.

"Where does it hurt?"

"Everywhere," she groaned. "It's a hot, stinging pain."

"I'm sorry."

"Too bad it's not hot enough to melt this blasted snow," she muttered. The haze in her mind was lifting, but the pain was growing simultaneously. "Who are you, anyway?" she asked, finally willing her eyes to open. Things buzzed at first, then the man's face came into view. It was soft and familiar: cocoa skin molded into a handsome man, yet still somehow the face of a baby.

"Jason. Do you remember me?"

Grace's eyes fluttered. She _definitely_ remembered him. "Jason Treacy?" she squeaked, feigning a loss of memory.

"Yeah," he chirped, flashing a familiar pearly grin. It hadn't changed one bit since all those summers ago. "Well," he paused, "actually _Dr._ Jason Treacy."

"Oh." The revelation didn't come as much of a surprise. He had been as studious as she had been. The _real_ surprise was him being in the same parking lot, of the same hospital, that she was currently lying in. "Congratulations," she replied lamely.

"Can you get up?" he asked.

"Maybe."

"Here," he offered, wrapping his arms around her waist and helping her up. "Better?"

Grace winced as she attempted to apply pressure to her right foot. "I think I may have sprained it," she admitted. Without thinking, she leaned against Jason's arm for support. Then as she realized her error, she quickly pushed away, instead choosing the nearest trunk of a car to lean on.

"Come here," Jason laughed. "I don't bite." He slid his arm under hers and around her waist. "You should probably get this looked at. Good thing we're at a hospital."

"And you're a doctor."

"Yeah," he grinned. "That too." As they began to hobble towards the lit doors together, he turned his head curiously and asked, "So what brings you here on New Year's Eve?"

Grace bit back a bitter laugh. "Uh, well, actually, funny story see…" She fidgeted beneath his embrace. "See uh, I'm also a doctor and, well, I got a promotion last week and," she shrugged, "here I am."

"You work here?" he asked, his eyes swelling with surprise.

"As of tomorrow, I do. I just spent the last week moving everything into my new slum apartment in the city and I had just been walking back to my car after meeting the Dean of Medicine-"

"Dr. Ash."

"Yeah," she looked down at her limping foot as she stepped through the doors, "when I realized I locked me keys in my car, my cell was dead, and then I slipped on the ice walking back to the hospital to find a phone."

"Bad day."

"Tell me about it."

Jason maneuvered her over to a bunch of wheelchairs, where he sat her down and propped up her leg. Without a word, he grasped the handles and began to push her down the hall until they came to an empty room, which he wheeled her into and shut the door.

Feeling awkward in the silence, Grace laced her hands together and cautiously ventured, "So what brings up here?"

"Ah," he laughed. "Comparing stories, are we?"

"Hey, I told you mine," she giggled.

"I've been working here since Hampton-Hope opened. My first job post-graduation was under a real dick and I just couldn't deal with it. The pay cut was well worth it, let me tell you!"

"But New York?" Grace asked as he examined her swelling ankle. "I thought you always wanted to go to San Francisco. Or L.A. Or-"

"Some place in Cali?"

"Yes."

"Me too. But hey, people change, dreams change…you really never know what you want at sixteen."

She rolled her eyes. "Ain't that the truth."

Jason licked his lip as he moved to the drawer, fumbling around for cloth wraps. "So uh…how about you?" he asked carefully. "A promotion, huh? Where were you before now?"

"Georgia."

"Georgia!" he practically cackled. "Definitely not what I would have pegged you for."

"It was an offer I couldn't refuse."

"That explains the hair," Jason noted, motioning to her shoulder length curls. "Too hot to keep it long there, huh?" Without waiting for a response, he shrugged. "I think it looks good on you. Short hair, no bangs. It really makes you look more mature."

"Thanks."

"Not that you _weren't_ mature before," he quickly corrected.

"Oh, but at sixteen, none of us were really mature at all anyway. No offense taken." She laid her arms on the rests as Jason began to wrap up her ankle. The uncomfortable silence crept back into the room as he diligently worked on repairing her. Much to her shame, she began to wonder what was going on in his personal life at present. "Do you have a-" She stopped as he looked up.

"Do I have a what?" he urged.

"Uh…" she lamely wracked her brain for an impromptu follow up. "…an apartment nearby?" She winced, mentally scolding herself for how much worse that sounded in retrospect than what she was going to say in the first place.

"No, actually," he chuckled. "It's a bit of a commute."

"Oh," she squeaked. "I see."

"How about you?" he asked. "An apartment nearby? I could drop you off if you need it." He gave a wary look at her ankle. "Because you aren't going to be able to get home on that, Miss Bowman." He paused, shyly looking her in her silver eyes. "It _is_ still _Miss Bowman_, right?"

Grace smirked. "_Dr._ Bowman, actually."

"Right!" he laughed. "Sorry."

"No problem." She strummed her fingers along the wheelchair armrest. She could feel the blush in her cheeks. "You'd really take me home?" she asked.

"Cheaper than a cab."

"Right," she gulped. "Yes, I mean, _of course_ I'll reimburse you for gas-"

"Grace!" he touched her hand, halting her pensive strumming. "I didn't mean it like that. _I offered._ No strings attached."

"Sounds familiar," she blurted out and immediately regretted it.

Jason winced. "I didn't mean-"

"I know. I just-"

"I never meant to cause you and Jack to break up back then," he said, his eyes dull and remorseful.

"You didn't. He cheated with Madison. I would've found out anyway. Besides, if we were kissing and they were kissing, we didn't belong together anyway. And," she rolled her eyes, "_whatever._ That's all in the past now."

"Yeah. All in the past," he agreed. Loud explosions suddenly sounded from somewhere outside. Jason moved to the window and pulled back the blinds, revealing sparking fireworks in the distance. He glanced down at his gold watch and turned towards Grace with a creeping smile. "Happy New Year."

From her peripheral vision, she eyed the clock on the wall. It was indeed midnight, marking the start of a brand new year. She pursed her pink lips. "Happy New Year," she agreed.

"Any resolutions?"

Grace moved her fingers through her shoulder length curls. "To new beginnings?"

Jason smirked and dug into a near drawer, pulling out to mystery flavored dum-dums. He handed one to Grace. "Sorry," he spoke, "I don't have champagne or anything."

Grace tore off her wrapper and looked down at her white sucker, a mystery, just like her future. She noticed Jason holding up his as well and cocked a curious eyebrow at his behavior.

"To new beginnings."

With a chortle of laughter, she clinked her dum-dum against his and popped it into her mouth. "Hmm," she mumbled. "Butterscotch, my favorite!"

"What a coinkidink," he held up his dum-dum. "Mine too."

_"Hmm."_ she mumbled behind her sucker. "No kidding."

Jason scuffed the toe of his left sneaker against the heel of his right. "So," he ventured, "about that ride?"

Grace clamped her lips around the stick of her dum-dum, carefully hiding the smile that tickled her mouth in response to Jason's enthusiasm over taking her home. "About that," she agreed. "It is New Year's Eve and all. You wouldn't, I don't know, be interested in uh, getting a drink or something, would you?" She quickly looked down at her ankle to avoid his gaze. "Purely celebratory, of course."

"Purely." He grabbed the handles on the back of her wheelchair and pushed her out into the hallway.

As he pushed her down the hallway and back out into the cold, she tilted her head back to watch the brilliant fireworks ringing in New Year. _"New beginnings,"_ she muttered beneath her puffs of white breath. As she popped her dum-dum back into her mouth, she realized that maybe the year ahead had more promise than she'd originally anticipated.


End file.
